Field of Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to electronic devices and, more specifically, in certain embodiments, to electronic devices having a bus translator.
Description of Related Art
In the field of computing, pattern recognition tasks are increasingly challenging. Ever larger volumes of data are transmitted between computers, and the number of patterns that users wish to identify is increasing. For example, spam or malware are often detected by searching for patterns in a data stream, e.g., particular phrases or pieces of code. The number of patterns increases with the variety of spam and malware, as new patterns may be implemented to search for new variants. Searching a data stream for each of these patterns can form a computing bottleneck. Often, as the data stream is received, it is searched for each pattern, one at a time. The delay before the system is ready to search the next portion of the data stream increases with the number of patterns. Thus, pattern recognition may slow the receipt of data.
Hardware that performs pattern recognition has been designed, and this hardware is believed to be capable of searching a data stream for a relatively large number of patterns relatively quickly. However, implementing this hardware is complicated by the variety of devices with which the hardware might interface. Pattern-recognition devices may be coupled to a variety of different types of processors, e.g., different types of microprocessors, and each of these different types of processors may be configured to communicate with other devices through different types of buses. Manufacturing pattern-recognition devices for each of the different types of buses is more expensive than designing and manufacturing a single version of the device.
This issue is not limited to pattern-recognition devices. Other peripheral devices that are designed to attach to and communicate with processors through processor buses face similar issues. For example, different memory devices are often designed for each of the different buses, and different hard-disk controllers are often manufactured for each of the different buses. For example, a Windows compatible personal computer has specific requirements for large amounts of 32-bit wide DRAM, while a high speed video card requires high-speed SRAM. Designing and manufacturing bus-specific devices is believed to reduce the flexibility of these devices and add to their design costs.